Keep Your Specific Purpose Realistic

Remember that you may not be able to effect change with one presentation. People don’t easily abandon their deep-seated values or behaviors just by listening to a single speech. This is especially true with speeches of value and policy. Keep this in mind as you’re developing your specific purpose. You might get better results by using the foot-in-the-door technique: asking your listeners to agree to a small action in the hope that you’ll gain their compliance over time (Burger, 1999). For instance, rather than telling your listeners that they should eliminate all fast food from their diet, you may want to define a more realistic specific purpose: to persuade them to make healthy choices when ordering fast food.